This week I hope to bring you a thought you can integrate into your week, or your life as a whole. If you would have been around me much when I was in Sales Management, you would have heard me talk a lot about building a culture within our company. And now you’ll hear me talk about the same thing within the church I pastor. Culture is thought of by many to involve a set of customs or behaviors within a country or area of that country. But, it’s a much more ground level and practical topic than that. Culture needs to be developed in a home environment, church, school, business, or nearly any organization that involves the participation of human beings.

I want us to seriously consider and honestly answer this question: “Are You Reliable?” Ultimately, do you do what you say you’re going to do? I’m alarmed how much the answer to this question is changing in our society. I’m relatively young but even in the 14 years or so that I’ve been in the business world, I’ve watched reliability deteriorate. I’m amazed, yet disgusted how often I’m told that I’ll receive an email reply, a call back, or even a check in the mail, and receive nothing until I contact and remind the other party of their commitment.

Hey, it’s Matt Potratz. It seems crazy to me that summer is running away from us! I don’t know about for you, but for me this year is flying by, crazy fast! I recently one of those weeks when I sat down to write and nothing came, no inspiration flowed. Then I was preparing for my day and examining my face in the mirror, noticing that my skin was starting show that I am aging. It hit me: “The Face in The Mirror”. What are my thoughts when see that face in the mirror? Do I see what I want to see? Do we smile with delight? Do we cringe? Do we wish for something different?

As many of us have, I’ve had a few both business, and personal, relational struggles and had a handful of road blocks come up with people. Overall, I’ve done a pretty good job of forgiving and forgetting and moving on without a grudge or sour feelings. However, the one person I was unaware that I needed to forgive and has become my most difficult forgiveness battle is forgiving “me.” Yes, I said forgive “myself.”

Hey it’s Matt Potratz here. I’m so glad you chose to Rise Up with me this Sunday morning. I want to take a few minutes this morning to reflect on the holiday we just celebrated this week. Over the years Thanksgiving has become the holiday I most look forward to. I’ve never taken the time to explain why nor have I really even questioned myself why. Why Thanksgiving? I don’t get excited about food so I’ve known it wasn’t that.

As a Speaker & Author, I get to spend a lot of time around people of all ages.  It's been interesting to watch how our society seems to be becoming more judgmental than ever.  And quite honestly, I've been alarmed to recognize how much I have fallen into this mindset as well.  I can't say that I've pinpointed the source, nor that it's even possible to pinpoint the primary source.  But what I do know is that for every one of us; as a child, as soon as we began to discover ourselves, and embrace our family culture, we began to judge to some degree. 

I hope the first week of your New Year is looking like you hoped it would. You might be looking at the statement made in this weeks topic and thinking, "that's not necessarily true for every subscriber, because not everyone has discernment." But I disagree. We all have discernment in our specific area of gifting or training.

It blows my mind that we're already headed into a New Year!  It feels like smoke should be rolling off the hour hand of my clocks because time moves entirely too fast in my world.

We're revisiting a thought from last year that received a lot of feedback. I urged us to be aware of the way we view ourselves. The thought came to me as I was preparing for my day and examining my face in the mirror, noticing that my skin was starting show that I am aging. Then it hit me: "The Face in The Mirror.”

This week my question might seem very broad, but we’re going to narrow it down to a specific area.  You ever wonder what it would be like to be someone else?  You catch yourself watching them, seeing all they have, or all that they can do, and thinking, “it must be nice”, and wondering what it would be like to have that life.  If we’re to be real, I bet we’ve all entertained that thought more than once.  It’s not limited to age or gender either.  And I would venture to say that social media has increased this topic quite a lot. 

I’ve had a crazy schedule lately, so we missed a weekly thought last week, but I’m back in the saddle this week. Today, after my boys’ t-ball team won the league championship, and my boys were both selected to play in the all-star game, I ended up in the middle of conversation amongst parents who disagreed with having a champion, and selecting all-stars, at such a young age. One father said, “all the kids are all-stars. They’re all champions. This stage should be all about learning the game, not winning and losing.” And I can see his point, and understand his position, to an extent. However, my reply was “true, they should be learning, but they have learn to win well, and how to lose well.

You may have noticed that several times i’ve revisited thoughts from weeks back, and it’s not because I have nothing new to write about. It’s because I see value in, and even find myself needing to revisit the thought as a reminder. Many of these can really be daily disciplines. We’re revisiting a thought called simply, “Influence,” and you’ll notice I renamed it “Be an Influencer.” And i’m going to add to it as well.